


Time

by axelle_alenko



Series: An Angel's Fall [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angels, Broken Families, Exile, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, aseryan politics lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 04:43:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8387647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/axelle_alenko/pseuds/axelle_alenko
Summary: There would never be a pain like this.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So! This is entirely canon. This is before *any* of my other stories with Zuriel. Seriously. Before Caol/Zuri, before Zuri/Eric, before any things with him. Enjoy?!!?

The only sound was his breathing. The whole room had sucked in a breath so grand it stole the oxygen clean from everyone's lungs, and a fleeting thought left him wondering how much longer before time started again.

"Zuriel Xenos, apprentice to Council Member Adnachiel, you are hereby exiled to the realms outside of Aserya. Until further notice, you are stripped of any rights to the city and this realm's surface. You have until sundown to pass through a portal to the Earthen realm."

A sob broke out over the quiet, and his vision blurred. Time started again, and the tears slid down his face unhindered.

"The guards will begin a search of homes at approximately nineteen hundred hours. If you are found still within city limits, you will be executed." He couldn't look. He felt so many mournful eyes on him that it took every ounce not to crumble to the chamber's floors. 

There was a painful, aching silence, followed by a shaking breath.

"Thank you, Council Member Gazardiel. I will retrieve my belongings."

The woman's skin gleamed as haunted eyes refused to meet his own. Her head held high, the pain was hidden beneath the surface like poison in her veins. "Good. You are dismissed."

Whispers reached his ears with every step, and the lone angel returned to his home, the sun's light indicating that he had roughly five hours to say good-bye to everything he had ever known. The door clicked open behind him, and skin the same hue as his own wound tight against his back, despite his lowered wings.

"Th-They- Zuriel-" Her voice was dripping with untainted sorrow, so unfiltered it broke his facade. A piercing wail left his lips, accompanied by a torrent of tears. His knees gave out below him, Muriel's grip on him tightening, supporting her younger sibling's smaller frame.

Uncontrollable sobs wracked him, the small, broken family crumbling to the floor, engaged in their last embrace. Her tears and hiccuping breaths mingled with his, and then everything was a blurr. He never had many belongings, his memories his choice of dearest possession. But now they were shattered, tinted with a bitter poison that stained them like blood.

Yofiel never came to the portal. Between still-lingering hiccups, his own flesh and blood explained that his best friend from birth couldn't bear saying farewell. It was for the best. Yofiel never would have let him go. A twisted thought wished that the younger angel was choking on his own sobs in their moment of disconnected misery.

Muriel pried herself from the young man she had watched grow and develop into the defiant, rambunctious angel that had dug himself into his own flaws. In his hand held the memento he would take to the end of his life and beyond- the slim strip of metal, with a hidden clasp, a piece of his earliest memory buried within: of the sunset when he was born.

"I love you, little brother. Never forget that."

"Right." His throat wanted to slam shut and never let sound escape again. He turned and stepped through his portal, into another life, another world covered in new misery, undiscovered adventures, and buried deep within his suffering, another form of love.

He would return eight years later, a lover in tow, his world turned right-side up, his demons vanished.

Until then, time would slip him by, and until he saw the gold gleam from the rising sun's light, he would reluctantly learn that home wasn't a physical place.

Home was wherever _he_ was.


End file.
